18 seconds exactly? Yes Is someone timing? Yes Is 18 seconds the time it takes for a relevant thing to happen? Yes/Yope

Are they outside? Inside? This Is religion relevant? No Are they a couple? No (not in a romantic sense) Are they kneeling together? Yes Are they the only ones kneeling? Yes

Do they do this once? At this place, Yes Multiple times? They did this multiple times before If so, always the same two people? This Different combinations of people? Do other people also do this? Others do the thing this pair is doing, but without the kneeling

Are they famous? Yes Relevant when and where this took place? Yes/Yes Is the time of 18 seconds relevantly exact Yes and would the puzzle work if it were a different amount of time? No

Would they do it if the ground was warm? Soft? Wet? Sharp? Underwater? Lava? No to all except "wet," which could be added to the puzzle statement

After the 18 seconds are up, do they stand up? Yes Do they do something else relevant before kneeling? No During? Yes After? Yes

Are they being reverent? No

Are they kneeling to someone? No Before something? No

Some kind of ceremony? No Awards or sport relevant? Yes, sports Is it that something in particular takes 18 seconds to do, or is the 18 seconds relevant in itself? Both Ice skating relevant? Once again, the whimsy of Mimsy is going to bring one of my puzzles to a quick end. Yes.

Relevant how their knees are clothed? No, but see previous How the kneeling affects their clothes? No Their knees? No

Ah the penny drops. I heard this story some years ago and it never occurred to me that it could make a good puzzle but I see now that it does. I've sent you a one word PM. Thank you! I've sent you a one-word response.

The length of time it takes them to execute a particular manouevre? For svv (and sufficiently vague US/UK spelling) of "maneuver" To kneel at the end of their performance? No To kneel while the judges hold up their score cards? No Something else? See first answer

Wait for something? For their announcement? For their music to begin, and possibly play the intro bars? I'm going to go ahead and say this is close enough. The rest is technical.

****SPOILER****

(This was my attempt to sneak a Winter Olympics puzzle during the Winter Olympics.)

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's record-scoring ice dance routine during the 1984 Winter Olympics was set to "Bolero," a 17-minute piece. Olympic rules dictated that a routine must last four minutes, give or take 10 seconds, and the shortest they could get "Bolero" cut down to was 4:28, 18 seconds too long. But while examining the rules, they noticed that the timing of the routine began when a skate blade first touched the ice, so they performed the first 18 seconds of the routine while kneeling.